


Anablephobia, They Fell

by ImpulsivelyBlue



Series: Phobia [5]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2014-05-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 12:32:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1648763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpulsivelyBlue/pseuds/ImpulsivelyBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anablephobia, the fear of looking up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anablephobia, They Fell

\---

Phobia, a pathological fear. 

Anablephobia, the fear of looking up.

\---

For a panicked moment Dick thinks he's in the circus again. It's just a fleeting moment, fleeing before he fully realises what's happened but that's all it takes. 

He freezes for a second, eyes snapping to the floor, away from the roof of the cave and the darkness he had been gazing unseeingly in to. The walls are the same dark shadows he is used too after so many years and the screens cast shadows that crawl up the teaching up high before stopping almost admitting defies to the shadows, the glow weak and fading ye higher it tried to climb. 

(-like he had climbed so many times before, it was meant to be secure. The rope was strong and his parents were skilled from do many years of practice and their performance-)

He thinks he hears a sickening this of flesh falling to the ground, the sound freezing his movements and his mind begins to race.

He knows that if he looked up there would be nothing there. Not a broken rope, or the faded fabric of the big top. Nothing. 

But he can't. 

He can't look up. He knows, he really does that there's nothing there and he shouldn't be alone because the effects of the fear gas still linger even now, an hour after Bruce gave him the antidote but his memories scream out to him, all he needs to do is look up. 

Eventually he leaves the cave, the memories following him up the stairs and through the hallways and in to his nightmares as he lays on his side in his bed, still stubbornly refusing to let him go and allow him at least some sleep that night. There is silence now as the memories blossom and bloom like bruises in his head, behind his eyelids. 

(He still can't bring himself to look up, he knows there's nothing there, that there isn't anyone there, he couldn't save them, he was only able to watch them fall and he thinks that one night without sleep is a little punishment to be had compared to the guilt he holds in his heart.)

\---


End file.
